BankThink

The last time bankers won a major lawsuit against NCUA, CUs responded by creating one of the most powerful lobbying forces on Capitol Hill.

What matters is what the customer gets, not how they get it. Investing in digital distribution yields little unless banks are delivering the products and services that customers crave.

Breaking News This Morning ...UBS profits fall: Unlike other large international banks, which have mostly been reporting better-than-expected earnings for the third quarter, UBS reported its net profit dropped more than 60%. Net profit fell to 827 million Swiss francs from 2.1 billion francs in the same quarter last year. Analysts were expecting 945 million francs. Last year's figure was inflated by a large one-time tax benefit. The Swiss bank said it continued to experience "client risk aversion" as well as the effects of low and negative interest rates that reduce revenue.

Prepaid cards and new mobile innovation in prepaid can bring speed and improve user experience for many different payment types and other financial services.

A report on women in the financial services industry illuminates some of the ways gender is still a factor holding them back. One problem is unstated ideas about qualities for success, which have been decided over decades by men. It seems that gender diversity initiatives aren't helping, but a couple of headhunters have some suggestions for how banks can do better and so does Debbie Matz. "Equity" screenwriter Amy Fox talks about what she learned from women on Wall Street, and the film is set to become the basis of a new ABC television series.

The last movie about female executives on Wall Street was "Working Girl" in 1983. The end of the movie left the audience feeling euphoric. But in creating the movie "Equity," we set out to explore — as authentically as possible — the experiences women have in this field, and the truths that we encountered in our interviews were not pretty.

Breaking News This Morning ...Deutsche Bank reports: Deutsche Bank reported a profit of €278 million in the third quarter, compared to a loss of €6.02 billion in the year earlier quarter. Analysts had been expecting another loss. The big German bank said it was making progress on turning around its business even as it seeks to negotiate a reduced penalty with the U.S. Justice Department to close a probe related to mortgage securities. Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, New York Times

The latest tale of wrongdoing tied to the financial services industry is the outcome of a smart customer-centered strategy that went awry. Now, bank customers will ultimately suffer the most.

Receiving Wide Coverage ...OCC seeks data: The Office of the Comptroller of the Currency has sent formal letters to large and regional banks it regulates seeking information about their sales practices and incentive-compensation plans following the Wells Fargo scandal. JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citigroup and Santander USA were among the banks getting letters. Comptroller Thomas Curry told the Senate Banking Committee last month the regulator will "review the sales practices of all the large and midsize banks the OCC supervises and assess the sufficiency of controls with respect to these practices."

Neither bank regulators nor banks' risk managers can afford to wait until rating agencies downgrade Deutsche before understanding the level of exposure they have to the German bank giant.